In 1990, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) was completed by a random sample of 1,448 West Virginia public-school students in grades 9-12. The sample was 51 percent male and 89 percent white. About 71 percent of subjects were aged 15-17; 39 percent were in the ninth grade. The YRBS covered behaviors producing vehicle-related or other injuries, drug and alcohol use, sexual behaviors, tobacco use, dietary behaviors, and physical activity. A 6-point scale to measure level of rurality was developed, based on the number of enrolled students per school attendance area in square miles. Half of the subjects attended extremely rural or very rural schools. One-way analysis of variance resulted in significantly higher risk scores on the entire YRBS for males compared to females, for 12th graders compared to lower grades, and for subjects aged 16-18 compared to younger subjects. Both when subjects were clustered as three risk groups (high, average, and low) and when they were clustered as two groups (high and average), discriminant function analysis indicated that rurality was the most consistent discriminator of the groups, with higher risk being associated with less rural classification. Gender was the next most potent discriminator of risk groups, but results were affected by a few extreme scores. (SV)